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Dartmouth College Library Bulletin

Journey to Hanover, August 1771

DICK HOEFNAGEL and VIRGINIA L. CLOSE

In a letter dated 'Dartmouth College Aug[t] 5[th] 1771,' Eleazar Wheelock, founder and first president of the College, wrote to John Wentworth, New Hampshire's royal governor and one of the twelve College trustees, 'I hope to wait upon your Excellency among these Pines at the Time appointed viz the last Tuesday of this Month.' [1] It was to be the meeting of the trustees at Dartmouth's first Commencement, following the institution's having been chartered in December of 1769 and established on the Hanover Plain during the summer of 1770.

The governor and a 'retinue of gentlemen from Portsmouth and the vicinity' left comfortable homes to travel on horseback for about one week, partly 'through the almost trackless forests,' in order to spend two days in what Wheelock called 'this Wilderness.' [2] Clearing of the towering woods on the Hanover Plain had begun a year earlier; only a few small buildings had been erected. Despite these primitive conditions, the governor and company must have been pleased enough with what had been accomplished thus far, with the potential for the future, and with the performance of the four 'commencers': the first four graduates of the College. Before returning home, the visitors agreed to subscribe to a gift for Wheelock as a measure of their gratitude for his hospitality and of their good wishes for the future of the College. Little did they realize that this gift would become one of Dartmouth College's most treasured heirlooms. Recent inquiry has provided details of the history of its acquisition.

Among the visitors from Portsmouth was Dr. Ammi Ruhamah Cutter, the governor's closest friend from student days at Harvard and his personal physician. Also present was Samuel Moody, since its founding in 1763 the headmaster of Dummer Academy in Byfield, a parish of Newbury in Massachusetts. Master Moody had known Wheelock since the early 1760s; he admired him as a teacher and as the founder of the Indian Charity School in Lebanon Crank (now Columbia), Connecticut, the forerunner of Dartmouth College.[3] From a series of four letters Master Moody wrote to Dr. Cutter, we learn not only of the central role he played in the story of the Wheelock gift, but also of additional events related to Dartmouth College's first Commencement.[4]

Master Moody, in his enthusiasm for various projects, was apt to skip from one to another and back again. To avoid confusion, sections of the letters pertinent to the gift for Eleazar Wheelock have been brought together and discussed, separated from those related to other events. Only a few minor changes in punctuation have been made.

MASTER MOODY AND THE MONTEITH

Newbury 27th March 1772.

Dear Sir

The Motion of a Present to the worthy Head of Dartmouth College, as a Testimony of our Gratitude for the Civilities received, and our good Wishes to that young Institution was I think kind and generous; and as this Proposal, if I mistake not, was made by the Governor, whose liberal Soul always devises liberal Things, it might betray a Want of a proper Regard to him not to take a proper Notice of it. It has been thought a handsome Piece of Plate, a Tankerd, or what should be judged most expedient would be very acceptable with his Excellencies Coat of Arms, the President's Coat of Arms, or the College Seal; which of these three would be most suitable others can better judge than I; with these or some such Words, Given to D. E. W. P. of D. C. [Dr Eleazar Wheelock President of Dartmouth College] by his Excellency John Wentworth Esq. & Train [friends] upon their visiting Dartmouth College the first Commencement 1771. This may be perhaps better now than when the Company were together, as we may now only propose it to such as we think might be called to give upon such an Occasion, and free our other Friends from that Pain which it would have given generous Minds, not to have joined in so benevolent a Design. I am very free to contribute from two Dollars to a Guinea as shall be judged Congruous, and our Treasurer (I am afraid I am too ambiguous, I mean you Sir, if I must be explicit) will be very free if invited to obtain a Subscription, collect the Money, and carry into Effect this good Purpose; which his Heart was so much upon in our Journey. I shall write Col. Gilman & Col. Folsom on the Subject; and you will want no Motive I know to forward it with the Gentlemen in your Vicinity, with whom you have so near a Connection, and intimate Access.[5]

It appears Master Moody was not quite certain that the idea of a gift for 'the worthy Head of Dartmouth College' had originated with the governor. Evidently nothing had been done until Moody made matters move with the suggestion of 'a handsome Piece of Plate'; 'plate' was used to indicate silver or wrought silver. Neither the Wentworth coat-of-arms nor the Wheelock one was used. Moody may have known that the Dartmouth College Seal was being engraved, but it probably was not ready at the time. Wheelock wrote to the governor on 22 May 1772, 'I hope Mr Hurd [Nathaniel Hurd, the Boston silversmith] will have the College Seal compleated by Commencement [26-27 August ]';[6] it was presented to the trustees at their meeting of 17 August 1773. Moody's suggestion for the inscription on the 'Piece of Plate' certainly anticipated the one ultimately to appear on the gift.

Lacking a list of names, it remains unclear how many there were in the 'Company' traveling to Hanover. Chase writes that there was 'said to have been sixty in number.' This has not been authenticated; Wheelock spoke of 'a great Number of Gentlemen of Character.'[7] Whatever the actual number, Moody apparently preferred a smaller group to contribute to the expense of the gift. In his letter discussing his own contribution, 'dollar' refers to the Spanish (milled) dollar, the most common coin in circulation, one such dollar equalling six shillings.[8]

On 13 April 1772, Moody wrote, 'I have only to thank you my good Friends for your generous Compliance with all my Proposals,'[9] indicating that matters were proceeding well. In fact, only four months later Moody could report to Dr. Cutter on the near completion of the gift:

Newbury 13th August 1772[10]
Dear Sir,

Yours of the 2[d] Instant received last Saturday Evening Monday Forenoon waited on M[r] Fisher found the Business you wrote me on completed, & Col Gilmans Col Folsoms Money there paid my Guinea toward the Bowl which closed the Collection[11] Found M[r] Fisher had the Inscription finished and with the Goldsmith and it will with his Emprovements have I presume all your Approbation and will stand the Test and bear the most severe Examen I hope of all future Critics in the conspicuous Situation it may be in Centuries yet to come. It gives me a particular Pleasure that this benevolent Proposal is like to be so agreeably terminated and it must I think as a Specimen of our Regard and Friendship to be highly acceptable to the Good President and he should I think have every Testimony of Respect to support and comfort him under all his Toils and Fatigues in founding conducting and establishing that important infant Institution. The Governors Invitation is highly obliging and I should have a very great Ambition through this agreeable Tour (should my Affairs permit) of being his most devoted humble Servant. My best Duty and Thanks to his Excellency and though I do not know whether I shall yet be able to resist the Temptation of so endearing an Invitation and so delightful an Occasion. I have given the Governor no Trouble about the intended Present to the Doctor and think it is upon a Principle of Congruity and Politeness that Gentlemen of the first Rank and Importance and exercised with such a multiplicity of interesting Objects of Attention should be freed as much as possible from all Care and Solicitude and have every thing prepared to their Hands and no mark but that of their Approbation. In a Word that all their transactions should by previous Attention of their Friends be rendered as easy and expeditious for them as might be. . . . You will give me Leave to close with a Regale [pleasantry] of M[r] Josiah Quincey Attorney at Law in Boston which he prepared to be placed under the Inscription.[12] But it came too late and was judged by some not calculated for the Meridian [taste] of that College, and in which you have a Specimen of the Fine Sublimity and Enthusiasm of his Genius.

					Crown high the Goblet!

Haste inspired Spirits to this blest Abode! Here drink deep of Knowledge, Truth, and Virtue; And while the circling Cup of science Passes around; in Draught Pierian,[13] Quaff Wisdom, Immortality and Joy Hark! Tis the enlivening Voice of Heaven! Attend the solemn sound, while grateful Strains Re-echo the eternal Benizon [blessing] "Peace to the Muses - to the Wise & Good" "Joy and fair Time, health & good Wishes."

From this letter we learn for the first time of the final form of the 'handsome Piece of Plate' when Master Moody wrote 'Paid my Guinea toward the bowl'. Over time some of the designations that came to be used have included 'Wentworth bowl,' 'President's punch bowl,' and 'Wheelock monteith.' For the present purpose 'monteith' is preferred; with or without the detachable rim in place it can serve as a punch bowl, but the notched rim serves as the signature feature of a monteith. The origin of the word was traced by Anthony Wood, the renowned antiquary:

Photo of The Monteith

This yeare [1683] in the summer time came up a vessel or bason notched at the brims to let drinking glasses hang there by the foot so that the body or drinking place might hang in the water to coole them. Such a bason was called a 'Monteigh,' from a fantastical Scot called 'Monsieur Monteigh,' who at that time or a little before wore the bottome of his cloake or coate so notched U U U U.[14]

Master Moody had completed collection of the monies pledged by others. The inscription had been engraved, which not only prevented consideration of adding Josiah Quincy's 'regale,' but it also made moot a belated suggestion by Benjamin Pomeroy. The Reverend Mr. Pomeroy of Hebron, Connecticut, a trustee of the College, life-long friend, and brother-in-law of Wheelock, had attended the College's second Commencement; Master Moody was not present, so Pomeroy wrote him in a note, dated 'Dartm[o] College 28[th] Aug[t] 1772':

I have been reconsidering the Inscription proposed by his Ex[cy] & others for the Bowl to be presented to the President of Dartm[o] College & apprehend that the omission of the term Founder is more material than I first tho't of, both in point of Justice to the Doctor; & the operation of some important Consequences; I therefore humbly propose whether it will not be better to have it stand thus;

The Rev[d] Eleazar Wheelock DD
Founder & first President
of said College &c

This point appeared to me of such importance that I could not omit the mention of it, tho' by a borrowed hand just as I am mounting my horse to go . . .[15]

In view of the prominent symbolic role the monteith came to play in the future of the College, Master Moody's comment 'in the conspicuous Situation it may be, in Centuries yet to come' proved truly prophetic; the monteith is at present almost two and a quarter centuries old. The high point of monteith fashion in England had already passed in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. In the American colonies only two other monteiths of the pre-Revolutionary period are known, both by John Coney of Boston (1655-1722). It is even possible that it was the Boston silversmith of the Wheelock monteith who suggested it as a somewhat different presentation piece. Two artisans had been engaged, both of Boston and both friends of Governor Wentworth. Daniel Henchman (1730-1775) and his brother-in-law Nathaniel Hurd (1729/30-1777) were both silversmiths, but Hurd was more proficient as an engraver. He also engraved work by Paul Revere, and achieved prominence as an engraver of bookplates, including some for Governor Wentworth and family, and of college seals, including Dartmouth's.

The simplicity in the monteith's design is evident in the three separately wrought parts: the hemispherical bowl soldered to a molded splayed foot and the detachable scalloped rim. The latter displays scrollwork and seven notches for wine glasses to be placed with feet outwards, for cooling in the bowl filled with cold water. With the rim removed, the bowl becomes a punchbowl proper. On the bottom of the bowl, in a rectangle, is Henchman's mark with some irrregularities: the first 'n' was mistakenly struck twice and the 'm' is markedly malformed.

Photo of Henchman's mark

Beneath the inscription, Hurd did add a scroll, incorporating a graceful representation of a bird with a branch in its beak; in one leaf the engraver placed his mark 'N.H. scp' [sculpsit].[16] In some photographs the monteith is shown with a ladle, made in England in 1754; it was presented in1899 by Mrs. Charlotte Cheever Tucker, wife of William Jewett Tucker, president of Dartmouth College from 1893 to 1909.

Photo of the inscription

Photo of the scroll and bird

We do not know to what use, if any, the monteith was put during its early life at the College. Entries in daybooks and ledgers tell us that the Wheelock family occasionally bought wine glasses and wine, and on at least one occasion Eleazar Wheelock purchased a punch bowl. In the colonies, punch was a popular drink: rum mixed with water, sugar, and lemon juice. After Wheelock's death, the monteith was not mentioned in his will or in the probated inventory of his worldly goods; it probably came to John Wheelock, his son and successor as president of the College. After the latter's death in 1817 it was kept, including during the turbulent days of the Dartmouth College Case, by his son-in-law and president of Dartmouth University, William Allen, who returned it to the College with a note to 'Mills Olcott, Esq. Treasurer of D. College,' dated 3 June 1820:

W. Allen offers his respects to Mr. Olcott & requests him to take charge of a Silver Bowl, a gold Medal, & a few papers for the President of D College.[17]

The monteith remained in the care of the College treasurer until 1962, when it became the responsibility of the College archivist. Whatever vicissitudes it endured, the monteith has survived in splendid condition.

It was at the inauguration of Ernest Fox Nichols as the tenth president of Dartmouth College on 14 October 1909 that the monteith came to embody 'the Wheelock Succession.' [18] On that occasion and at subsequent inaugurations the monteith has been handed by the incumbent president to his successor. In 1929 the then Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College presented a Tiffany reproduction in gold to Edward Tuck 1862, for his many major contributions to the College; it now is in the collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society. A second reproduction by Tiffany, this one in silver, is located in the president's house in Hanover. Other reproductions in silver, for general sale, have come from the Wilcox and Evertsen Company, a fine arts division of the International Silver Company of Wallingford, Connecticut.[19] On only three known occasions in recent times has the monteith left its secure abode for exhibition outside Hanover. These occasions are commemorated in published catalogues.[20]

Master Moody and 'a Respectable Township'

At the time of attending Dartmouth College's first Commencement, Governor Wentworth was a prominent participant in a protracted dispute between the provinces of New Hampshire and New York over sovereignty of lands west of the Connecticut River. Another player in this controversy was Colonel Jacob Bayley, renowned soldier of the French and Indian War (1754 to 1763) and founder of the Vermont township of Newbury, across the Connecticut River from Haverhill, New Hampshire. On his way to Hanover the governor paid a visit to Bayley:

When Governor Wentworth came to the first commencement at Dartmouth College in August 1771, he visited me at my home in Newbury and while there he appeared to be very jealous to get the lands on the western side of the Connecticut River added to the Province of New Hampshire and desired my assistance in the affair, and when he took his leave of me, he gave me his hand and added that he would use his utmost efforts to recover the aforesaid lands. About two months after- wards I received a letter from Governor Wentworth in the following tenor, namely--that I must make the best terms I could with New York for he could do no more to help me toward getting into the Province of New Hampshire.

I was very much surprised and disturbed and immediately went to Portsmouth to ascertain from the Governor why he had so suddenly changed his mind, but I could not get the satisfaction from him that I desired and expected. He put me off and seemed cold and indifferent.[21]

Bayley's disappointment was not the only consequence of the visit. The beginning of a wholly different, lasting one is related by Master Moody in a postscript to his letter of 27 March 1772. It appears that an untoward, dangerous event occurred while the group was crossing the river; courageous acts of some Newbury citizens saved the travelers from harm. This led the governor to propose a reward for the rescuers, for whom Moody had a less than flattering designation.

I hope the poor amphibious Animals, who bounded from Element to Element with so much Alertness, and were so officious in their Assiduities, to serve and save us amid all the Perils of Scylla & Charybdis, will not be entirely forgot.[22]

The latter allusion does find support in the occurrence in the summer of 1771 of 'the great freshet,' a flood along the Connecticut River of which accounts of witnesses have been preserved. The area around Haverhill and Newbury was 'buried in sand to the depth of two and three feet'; settlers lost 'more or less of their crops for that year, but their soil for a number of years.' Strong currents were especially dangerous.[23]

Moody suggested the type of reward:

Poor Souls they have elevated Hopes and Expectations of some Lands for themselves . . . and I cannot bear they should be baulked and disappointed. As it was one of the last Things the Governor proposed to me that some of you Gentlemen should move in this Affair. [24]

He hoped that the gift of land would be in the form of 'a respectable Township,' or, as he later wrote even more expansively, '. . . I hope it will be planned in the most striking Manner and be a truly respectable Town. . . . I have an Ambition it should in its Locality, Land-skaps Disposition &c, be distinguished and approach as near as may be the Elysian Fields.' [25]

Colonial governors rewarded relatives, friends, and others by making direct grants of land or by placing their names among those of grantees of new townships. Governments were always poor in money but rich in land, and thus the governors could enrich their favorites without costing themselves anything. That is what happened when Governor Wentworth proceeded to grant some twenty-three thousand acres for a new township in northern New Hampshire; Moody was given the honor to name the town, as we learn from a letter to Cutter:

As you were so obliging as to compliment me with naming the Town . . . I thought of none that would be more agreeable than Dummer--In Honour to Governor Dummer, the Founder of this School [Governor Dummer Academy], which has been as open to New hampshire as this Province, a great Number from there now.--So great a Friend and Benefactor to the Republic of Letters I would be glad should be had in everlasting Remembrance. I should be very glad to know the Situation [location] of our Town . . .[26]

First among the beneficiaries of the governor's largesse were, of course, burghers of Newbury. Moody informed Dr. Cutter, 'I wrote to Col. Bayley . . . for a List of the Amphibious Animals.'[27] Indeed, among the sixty-eight grantees of the township of Dummer are found the names of at least ten citizens of Newbury.

And there are others, for example relatives, associates, and friends of the governor: Mark Hunking Wentworth, his father; Daniel Pierce, an uncle by marriage; George Jaffrey, whose second wife was the governor's aunt; and John Fisher, his brother-in-law. Master Moody, a grantee himself, furnished the names of three of his ministers, two of whom appear in the list, the Reverend Mr. Moses Parsons of Byfield, Massachusetts, and the Reverend Mr. Samuel Lankton of York, Maine. Also listed are three of the Dartmouth College trustees who attended the 1771 Commencement.

Finally, Moody considered worthy of a reward, or perhaps more of a token of consolation, 'the young Gentlemen that were to have commenced.' At Commencement, the lack of a quorum of trustees by one (the College charter required seven of twelve to be present for conferring of degrees) had prevented the issuance of a diploma of the A.B. degree to the first four graduates of the College: Samuel Gray, John Wheelock, Sylvanus Ripley, and Levi Frisbie. Instead, each graduate received a 'recommendatory testimonial' or 'Certificate of Degree.' This situation repeated itself in 1772; not until Commencement on 25 August 1773 did the four receive their true diplomas. Earlier that year, 8 March, the official charter of the town of Dummer had been signed by Governor Wentworth, and among the names of the grantees are those of four 1771 graduates. Each was entitled to 'one Right' or 'equal Share,' which eventually came to three lots of one hundred acres each. It must remain a unique circumstance to have a governor bestow such a gift on each of four recent college graduates. The generous gesture did bring the four commencers, at least on paper, into illustrious company, such as the father of the governor, John Winthrop, F.R.S., the renowned professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Harvard, teacher and friend of the governor, and Samuel Langdon, D.D., minister at Portsmouth, who was to become president of Harvard in October 1774.

The township of Dummer is located in the Androscoggin River valley in northern New Hampshire; it was originally in Grafton County, and in Coos County after 1841. As usual, few if any of the grantees ever saw the town or any of the 23,040 acres belonging to it. The first meeting of the proprietors was held at Portsmouth on 10 June 1773 with Dr. Cutter as moderator and tax collector. Over the years more such meetings followed; additional taxes were levied, primarily to have roads built, but nothing happened as most of the proprietors were absentee landlords, who did not pay their taxes. This led in 14 May 1795 to 'the sale of such Proprietors Rights in the Township of Dummer . . . as are delinquent in paying the Proprietors Taxes. . . . John Wheelock, Samuel Gray, and Sylvanus Ripley sold their rights . . . for tax & charges'; what happened to Levi Frisbie's right is not clear. Land speculators, buying such rights for nominal sums, would sell the land, often years later, at large profits. Settlement of Dummer was slow; the town was not incorporated until 19 December 1848, and the first town meeting was held on 10 February of the following year.[28]

So it is that we now realize how Master Moody, the first headmaster of Governor Dummer Academy, orchestrated two major events that followed the first Commencement of Dartmouth College.

Acknowledgements:

Margaret A. Otto, Librarian of the College; Edward Connery Lathem, Dean of Libraries and Librarian of the College, Emeritus; Claire Packard, Executive Secretary; Anne Ostendarp, Archivist of the College; John F. Page, New Hampshire Division of Records Management and Archives; Elizabeth Hamlin-Morin, Manuscripts Curator, the New Hampshire Historical Society; and the staffs of Special Collections, Jones Microtext Center, and Interlibrary Loan.


[1] Dartmouth College Library, Special Collections, D. C. Archives Ms. 771455.2. The New Hampshire Gazette, and Historical Chronicle of Friday, 23 August 1771 (p. 3, col. 2) announced, 'Portsmouth. on Monday last [19 August] His Excellency Governor WENTWORTH, with a Number of Gentlemen, set out from hence for Dartmouth COLLEGE, by Way of Wolfesboro.' They traveled via Moultonboro, Center Harbor, Holderness, Plymouth, Rumney, Haverhill, Orford, and Lyme, to Hanover. Trustees' meetings were held on Tuesday, 27 August, and the following morning, Commencement day, as well as at five o'clock after the Commencement exercises.

[2] David McClure, Memoirs of the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, D.D., Founder and President of Dartmouth College and Moor's Charity School. . . . (Newburyport, Mass.: E. Little & Co., 1811), 60; Wheelock letter, 30 December 1771, Dartmouth College Library, Special Collections, D. C. Archives Ms. 771680.2. In A Continuation of the Narrative of the Indian Charity-School, &c., first printed in Hartford, Connecticut in 1773 and reissued as Rochester Reprint, 8 (1910?), he was more graphic, calling it a 'horrid Wilderness,' (p. 22) while Ariel Kendrick, in his Sketches of the Life and Times of Eld. Ariel Kendrick. Written by Himself, 3d ed. (Windsor, Vt.: P. Merrifield, 1850), wrote (p. [5]) that it was 'little else than a howling wilderness.'

[3] For biographical information on Dr. Cutter, see Benjamin Cutter, A History of the Cutter Family of New England. .. . rev. & enl. by William Richard Cuttter (Boston: Printed by David Clapp & Son, 1871) and Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 10 (1958), 220-225; for Moody, see John W. Ragle, Governor Dummer Academy History 1763-1963 (South Byfield, Mass.: Governor Dummer Academy, 1963); Nehemiah Cleaveland, The First Century of Dummer Academy. A Historical Discourse Delivered at Newbury, Byfield Parish, August 12, 1863. With an Appendix (Boston, Mass.: Nichols & Noyes, 1865); and Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 12 (1962), 48-54.

[4] Transcripts of the four letters are in Cutter Family of New England, 315-318. The original manuscript of the 13 August 1772 letter is in the collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, and a photocopy is in the Dartmouth College Library, Special Collections, D. C. Archives Ms. 772463.1.

[5] Cutter Family of New England, 315-316.

[6] Wheelock to John Wentworth, Dartmouth College Library, Special Collections, D. C. Archives Ms. 772322.2.

[7] Frederick Chase, A History of Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover, New Hampshire, ed. by John K. Lord, 2 vols. (Cambridge, [Mass.]: John Wilson and Son, 1891-1913), 1:230-231; Wheelock to the Reverend Mr. William Patten, 2 September 1771, Dartmouth College Library, Special Collections, D. C. Archives Ms. 771502.1.

[8] The guinea equalled 4 2/3 Spanish dollars or 28 shillings, i.e., one pound eight shillings lawful money, which came to [[sterling]]1.1.0 sterling. The coin values--pounds, shillings, and pence--were used only as a money of account; no English coins were in any way involved. The contemporary exchange rate to sterling in Massachusetts and New Hampshire was 33 1/3 per cent, e.g. 100 pounds sterling equalled [[sterling]]133.6.0 in accounts in those states. Two useful sources for information on eighteenth-century money are J.Earl Massey, America's Money: The Story of Our Coins and Currency (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, [1968]); and J. Wright, The American Negotiator: Or, the Various Currencies of the British Colonies in America. . . , 2d ed. (London: 1763). The American Negotiator is available in microform in The Eighteenth Century, Reel 308, No. 1.

[9] Moody to Ammi Ruhamah Cutter, in Cutter Family of New England, 317.

[10] Dartmouth College Library, Special Collections, D. C. Archives Ms. 772463.1 (photocopy). Text is also in Cutter Family of New England, 317-318.

[11] John Fisher (d. 1805) was the collector of customs at Salem, Massachusetts; a Loyalist, he was married to Governor Wentworth's sister Anna. Peter Gilman (1704-1788) was speaker of the New Hampshire House, officer in the revolutionary army, and trustee of Dartmouth College from 1769 to 1776. Nathaniel Folsom (1726-1790) was a soldier and a politician; he moved in the governor's circle. See the Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. 'Folsom, Nathaniel.'

[12] Quincy (1744-1775) was a brilliant lawyer, Harvard class of 1763, patriot, and prolific writer, who died at the age of thirty-one. See the Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. 'Quincy, Josiah.'

[13] Inspired by Alexander Pope's
A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring . . . .
An Essay on Criticism Part II, 215-216.

[14] As explained in the Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'monteith,' and also in Anthony Wood, The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, Antiquary, of Oxford, 1632-1695, Described by Himself: Collected from his Diaries and Other Papers by Andrew Clark 5 vols., Oxford Historical Society (Oxford: Printed for the Oxford Historical Society at the Clarendon Press, 1894), 3: 84.

[15] Dartmouth College Library, Special Collections, D. C. Archives Ms. 772478.2.

[16] Measurements of the monteith include: height 6 1/8 in. (15.5 cm), diameter 10 3/4 in. (27.5 cm); total weight 1360 grams (43.71 oz. troy, 48.05 oz. avoirdupois); bowl 990 grams (31.82 oz., 34.90 oz.), rim 370 grams (11.89 oz., 13.15 oz.). President Wheelock's given name was at times spelled Eleazer; Wheelock himself usually spelled it Eleazar. Some eighteenth-century handwriting makes it almost impossible to differentiate which spelling is being used. Philip Howard Dunbar, as a thesis for Art 101, wrote a 'Monograph on the Wheelock Monteith' in 1950; copies are available in Special Collections and from Storage.

[17] Dartmouth College Library, Special Collections, D. C. Archives Ms. 820353.

[18] Dartmouth College, The Inauguration of Ernest Fox Nichols, D.Sc., LL.D., as President of Dartmouth College, October 14, 1909, ed. Ernest Martin Hopkins. . . . (Hanover, N.H.: The Rumford Press, 1909), 29-32.

[19] Reproductions by the International Silver Company, column by Ann Sayre, 'Seen in the Galleries,' International Studio, 98 (March 1931): 10, 12.

[20] Masterpieces of New England Silver, 1650-1800, Gallery of Fine Arts, Yale University, June 18-September 10, 1939; 'Upon this Occasion,' a loan exhibition of important presentation silver from colonial times to today, Gallery of the Towle Silversmiths, Newburyport, Massachusetts, June 1 to November 1, 1955; and In Praise of America: Masterworks of American Decorative Arts, 1650-1830, Washington, National Gallery of Art, February 14-July 6, 1980.

[21] Edwin A. Bayley, 'An Address Commemorative of the Life and Public Services of Brig.-Gen. Jacob Bayley 1726-1815,' in The Upper Connecticut: Narratives of Its Settlement and Its Part in the American Revolution, 2 vols. (Montpelier, Vt.: Vermont Historical Society, 1943), 1:67-68.

[22] Moody to Cutter, letter of 27 March 1772, in Cutter Family of New England, 316.

[23] Grant Powers, Historical Sketches of the Discovery, Settlement, and Progress of Events in the Coos Country and Vicinity, Principally Included Between the Years 1754 and 1785 (Haverhill, N.H.: Published by Henry Merrill, 1880), 110-112; Frederic P. Wells, History of Newbury, Vermont, from the Discovery of the Coös Country to Present Time. With Genealogical Records of Many Families (St. Johnsbury, Vt.: The Caledonian Company, 1902), 261; and Roland Bixby, History of Warren [(Crawfordsville, Ind.] 1986), 199-290.

[24] Moody to Cutter, 27 March 1772, in Cutter Family of New England, 316.

[25] Moody to Cutter, 13 August 1772, in Cutter Family of New England, 318.

[26]

Moody to Cutter, 16 February 1773, in Cutter Family of New England, 319.

[27] Cutter Family of New England, 319.

[28] The course of the holdings of the students and the minutes of the meeting of the proprietors can be traced in the Dummer Proprietors' Records located in Concord at the State of New Hampshire's Division of Records Management and Archives. Information about the town of Dummer can be found in the Dummer Bicentennial Committee's History of Dummer, New Hampshire, 1773-1973 (Littleton, N.H.: Courier Printing Company, Inc., [1973]) and in Georgia Drew Merrill, History of Coos County, New Hampshire (Syracuse, N.Y.: W.A. Fergusson & Co., 1888).